The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria's Romance Scammers

This outstanding debut from New York Times reporter Barragán explores the lives of Nigerian scammers who use seduction as part of their grift. Having initially traveled to Lagos to find a Nigerian man who romanced and scammed his mother, Barragán ends up closely following four such “Yahoo Boys” (so named after the email service). They include Chibuike, who strings along an Irish mother for years by posing as professional wrestler Cody Rhodes, and Richie, who fears that a woman in Kentucky may have died because of his scam. Along the way Barragán delves into how romance scams work—using fake social media accounts, the scammers seduce Western men and women into buying them gift cards—as well as the Yahoo Boys’ lavish lifestyles and the lengthy pre-internet history of “impersonation scams” in Nigeria. There are plenty of eye-popping details, including alarmingly manipulative chats between the scammers and their victims, and even more nefarious alleged strains of Yahoo, including Yahoo Plus, in which scammers use “supernatural forces” to attract victims, and Yahoo Plus Plus, which “was rumored to entail ritual killings.” Yet the book is most noteworthy for its affecting humanization of both the Yahoo Boys—Barragán shatters the image of romance scammers as part of “well-organized Mafia-like syndicates,” instead revealing them as impoverished young men scrambling to survive—and of their victims, made vulnerable by the West’s loneliness epidemic. It’s a remarkably empathetic view of both sides of the con. (June)